THE FINANCIER
West the young financial aspirant who, in spite of youth
and wealth and a notable vigor of body, was a solemn,
conservative speculator as to what his future might be.
The West held much. He had studied the receipts of
the New York Clearing House recently and the disposi-
tion of bank-balances and the shipment of gold, and
seen that vast quantities of the latter metal were going
to Chicago. He understood finance accurately. The
meaning of gold shipments was clear. Where money
was going trade was—a thriving, developing life. He
wished to see clearly for himself what this world had
to offer. Two years later, after there had been the
meteoric appearance of a young speculator in Duluth,
and after Chicago had seen the tentative opening of
a grain and commission company labeled Frank A.
Cowperwood & Co., which ostensibly dealt in the great
wheat crops of the West, a quiet divorce was granted
Mrs. Frank A. Cowperwood in Philadelphia, because
apparently she wished it. Time had not seemingly dealt
badly with her. Her financial affairs, once so bad, were
now apparently all straightened out, and she occupied
in West Philadelphia, near one of her sisters, a new and
interesting home which was fitted with all the comforts
of an excellent middle-class residence. Mrs. Frank A.
Cowperwood was now quite religious once more. The
two children, Frank and Lillian, were in private schools,
returning evenings to their mother. "Wash" Sims was
once more the general negro factotum. Frequent visitors
on Sundays were Mr. and Mrs. Henry Worthington
Cowperwood, no longer distressed financially, but sub-
dued and wearied, the wind completely gone from their
once much-favored sails. Here, too, came Anna Adelaide
Cowperwood on occasion, a clerk in the city water office,
who speculated much as to the strange vicissitudes of
life. She had great interest in her brother, who seemed
destined by fate to play a conspicuous part in the world;
but she could not understand him. Seeing that all those
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